Recommended Posts

There have been several requests over the past few months for evidence regarding the current issues plaguing the Tecmo Community. While the Community as a whole is strong, we understand that the time has come to fully inform the Community of the issues that have led us to this point.

April 7, 2018

During the stream of Tecmo Madison XIV, the Facebook stream was hit with consistent requests to terminate the stream due to various claims the stream violated Facebook terms of service which caused consistent interruptions. Also during the stream of Tecmo Madison XIV there was a user named “TecmoTapper” on the Twitch stream who notes his ability to tap at 17-18. This was not screenshot and the Twitch video has expired.

April 8, 2018

A twitter account is created called TecmoTapper. TecmoTapper makes two posts the day after Tecmo Madison XIV.

As of 10/1/2018, these are the only tweets from the TecmoTapper account.

July 5, 2018

During the week of July 5, 2018, a pre-existing Tecmo Dallas Facebook page was suspended on Facebook. The owner of the page was concerned over the apparent oddity of the page being suspended almost a year later. The only way to permanently suspend the page was to make a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claim against trademarks or copyrights on the page. Facebook has a form that is required for submission. The form specifically mentions that an account is needed to make the claim, and that the claimant is subject to potential ramifications for making a false claim against a page.

As an additional security precaution, the Facebook submission form requires you to submit an email address associated with the claim – that email address would be handed over to the page owner for record keeping and dispute resolution. The email address of the claimant was: [email protected] Obviously, [email protected] is not a business account related to Koei-Tecmo America.

Today

Obviously, the largest issue given the above facts is that a person, using the [email protected] address has engaged in harassing behavior toward Tecmo Madison and affiliated events. Discovering who was behind the TecmoTapper account was of importance for the community.

The first step was to determine if TecmoTapper the twitter account was affiliated with [email protected] A simple password reset request on TecmoTapper twitter revealed that [email protected] was the account tied to the TecmoTapper twitter page.

Knobbe created a false link and emailed it to the TecmoTapper email address ([email protected]) – the purpose of the link was to have the user click on it and potentially reveal their location through IP address. Knobbe intentionally used inflammatory language in the link to derive a click and was successful.

The user clicked on the link – the first person to click on the link, clicked on the link from the IP address: 69.129.70.186.

Again, the only person who would have access to the link is [email protected] – that is the first and only location the error link was sent. The first login was under the IP address 69.129.70.186.

TecmoBowl.org keeps records of IP addresses for user security as well as owner security. There is an existing record of that IP address in the TecmoBowl.org records for a current member.

This IP address points to Trojan1979 as the user who had initial access to the TecmoTapper email address. However, first access is not enough on its own – it could be a shared account. However, an attempt to confirm that Trojan1979 was TecmoTapper using information that he keeps on his Facebook page was performed.

This video shows that [email protected] uses the same phone number as Trojan1979. It is the same person who created, accessed, and has use of the account.

We leave this in the hands of the community – a user is knowingly attempting to subvert tournaments for his own end and engage in underhanded behavior that affects us all.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I will repeat my statement from Discord (which has seemingly and conveniently disappeared along with all of my Tecmo Tour posts). I have never met Troy in person, never paid Troy, and never coordinated or organized any tournaments or events with him. I have never asked him or encouraged him to take part in any activities that would cause their pages, streams, or any other online material to be taken down. I nor my staff have ever taken part in these alleged activities.

If the allegations and evidence against Troy are true, then it is of extreme disappointment to me, and he deserves to be banned. However, I must add that neither Dave nor Matt ever came to me and asked me about my relationship with Troy. They never once tried to alleviate this issue privately with me. When Dave accused me of having his page taken down, he ignored my repeated requests for evidence (the email conversations are attached). I am also blocked from messaging Dave on FB. On this website, Matt accused me of directly taking part in the DMCA, but Dave changed his accusation and said it was an "associate of Hal's". Let me be clear, that I nor any of my associates took part in this, and Troy is not an associate of mine.

Yes, Troy shared the false link with me and several others. So what? I won't deny that I have been friends with and talked with Troy about the issues within the Tecmo Community. I have talked with several players about it. I have even directly asked Troy if he filed the DMCA.

I will also ask of @davefmurray to post a screenshot of the email Facebook sent him when he originally created the Tecmo Dallas Facebook page. I get an email every time from Facebook whenever I create a page. This will confirm whether or not such a page existed. Your posted image of the trademark infringement message from Facebook does not indicate which page is targeted.

I must now demand that my name, the Retro World Series, and Tecmo Tour be removed from your post, as I and my associates had nothing to do with any of the allegations. To continue to associate myself and my business with this kind of behavior is nothing short of defamation and will require legal recourse.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Page creations (becoming a Page Admin) don’t necessarily generate an email; that’s something that has to be activated in certain settings. I didn’t receive one when I created the Tundra Bowl Page, or other pages I have created in the past. Just speaking from a personal experience.

Edited October 2, 2018 by RetroNathan

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Page creations don’t necessarily generate an email; that’s something that has to be activated in certain settings. I didn’t receive one when I created the Tundra Bowl Page, or other pages I have created in the past. Just speaking from a personal experience.

Yes but a full screenshot of Dave's trademark infringment message (not the cropped one he posted) may be able to tell us what page it was for. The real point is that I made a good faith effort to resolve this with Dave 3 months ago, which is shown in the emails I attached. He ignored each request to try to resolve this privately.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I am a causal player...I play in Madison for fun (I'm not going to win Madison - and I'm OK with that)

As a casual player...I cannot believe the mud throwing in this....my goodness. Can someone please pick up the phone or setup a meeting with the other people with leadership roles and get this resolved? Take everything in the past and throw it under the bridge. There should be a collaborative effort - mainly between:

Dave - Tecmo Madison ( THE Superbowl of Tecmo) and other leaders of this tournamant.

Troy, The VOICE OF TECMO - Does a great job calling games and he WANTS TO CALL GAMES AND IS GOOD AT IT)

TGFM, - True Game Fans Newtork

Retro World Series (Hal - who does an WONDERFUL job of promoting - the ONLINE/local TOURNAMENTS ARE GREAT)

Once a plan is in place get other other successful Tecmo Tournaments - (ie Nate's Tecmo Tourney - ie Tupa Bowl - all others) WITH THE PRIMARY GOAL TO GET MORE PEOPLE TO PLAY than to try and fight for a TECMO something that isn't even there yet.

more people = more sponsorships = more revenue for all.

It sounds like there are some passionate people out there to lead these. Please annoint some leadership and lets get a full blown season setup with these tournaments with the Madison to be the SuperBowl.

I truly believe this has room to grow rather than get blown up internally.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I personally went through all of this stuff with Dave to make sure it added up. It did. I 100% back him on the above information.

I didn't exactly realize the scope of the problem until recently. I thought there was a problem but just didn't understand the extent because when someone is actively pitting you against someone it's very tough to see the forest in the trees sometimes.

I have removed all of the halhawkins information from above. Just because you might converse with someone does not mean they are any sort of associate. I now know that you are in no way associated with Trojan1979 though I did not know either way until today. I am very sorry at not giving you the benefit of the doubt, especially when the initial DMCA request was made. Logically to me it doesn't make sense why someone with no affiliation would want to take down that page. I've gone back and removed any sort of arguments we've had from your prior posts. If I have missed any please let me know and I will remove them. I"ve said this before and I'll say it again: Hal puts on good tourneys, he puts them on in places where there aren't traditionally tournaments, and I hope he finds success at it. As far as Tecmo Discord goes, your tournament posts aren't there because the entire tourney section was cleared out, not because you were singled out. Finally, I get that we very well might not be on good terms. This site is a hobby of mine. If you really feel the need to take legal action I imagine I will have to close the site because it's just not worth it.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

As I stated before, I've been thinking about things and re-evaluating everything.

I was thinking about two very pivotal moments in regards to this site.

The first was why I created this site. It was for the very simple purpose of keeping Tecmo alive and current. I had spent years playing in my college dorm room and my background had me interested in the inner workings. I still keep in touch from time to time with some of the original Tecmo Inc. members.

The second was why I created the Tournament section. I had been very much in the wilderness as everyone will be if they hang here long enough when I heard about the big tournament in Madison. 64 people! I had put on tournaments all the time back in the day but this was something I had to see for myself. I flew on a plane to Milwaukee because it was cheaper and got a ride to Madison with someone I now consider to be a life long friend. It was more amazing than I could have imagined even if I was so hungover before my first game I was having trouble with my controller. I met a lot of the fellow internet nerds I had spent years talking to. Amazing.

I see where I've been and where I'm at now. Stopping to look around now and seeing the influence of e-sports I realize that what I view as the point of tournaments, to foster good will of people on an online community through the humanizing process of personal interaction, is no longer the emphasis. To that point going forward there will be a de-emphasis on tournaments at this site. I still very much believe in these meetings as something that can be very positive and it's my resolve for people on this site to feel that way again too.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This is beyond ridiculous. As far as I know I’m the only person to have put on tournaments with the help of both Troy and Dave. Both are known names within the community and for different reasons. I have typed and deleted a post here 10 times wanting to voice my concerns but instead I’d rather give my appreciation to Dave and the way he conducts his business. I’ll let the rest fill in the blanks but know this I was going to shut my tournament down due to he actions of one person looking to become something bigger than everyone else.

When I created my Tecmo Milwaukee tournament I had the help of Rico and that was it. He was connected and we didn’t know how big we could get it. I reached out to Josh and Chet for help. They didn’t want to get involved but they gave me the players list so away I went. I quickly had a great deal of interest, but Rico and I didn’t have enough equipment. In came Troy. Troy wanted to play but had to justify it with his wife. He told me that he has all this equipment and TVs he could provide but for a price. So already from my first conversation I knew where his heart was. Still we needed the equipment due to getting a late start on it. His price? Meals, hotel, entry fee, federal mileage. Came out to $220. I kept it quiet from everyone and paid it out of my own pocket and not taking it out of tourney pool.

Troy did a great job and his equipment was top notch. You can tell a lot about a person in just the appreciation or giving of small gestures. Troy said he had a bad back and didn’t want to load up his vehicle. After the completion of our tourney I cleaned and loaded up his stuff. Perhaps he could have bought me a beer? Nope. He charges for his services....should I have charged for mine? He never stayed in a hotel but took that money. I walked out down $450 out of pocket, and was happy! It’s not about the money...it’s about the game.

THe boys eventually found out that I paid Troy and they weren’t happy with it. They said I shouldn’t have to eat that money, so we got out ahead on getting equipment for next tourney. We had all these systems and TVs that we were going to have to collect over town. I reached out to Troy asking if he was going to play....not use his equipment but play. He said no because we weren’t going to pay him to come down. Again has to justify it with wife. After a few contentious conversations Troy was about to have another kid and money was tight. We had guys who offered to carpool and I said I could help him out on fee. Had to be equipment or no deal for that he could sell to his wife.

In comes Dave Murray, who mind you I have had all but maybe 3 conversations with ever! He asked if I needed anything. Some of the prominent players who attended my tournament vouched for me and Dave reached out on his own. I told him my plan and dilemmas. The next day I received a package from package had all of his controllers and a credit card to get into the storage unit. He calls me and says take whatever you need. Systems, cords, TVs, and carts. Unbelievable. I ask how much you want?............his reply “Buy me a beer.”

Some of you may not know, but someone stole equipment from Dave at Madison. He didn’t have to reach out and help after what the community did but he did anyway.

I dont care about how good of a player you are or think you are. I don’t care how many tournaments you have won. I don’t care if you create a better website or have fancy advertising.......Respect is earned and it’s lost that quickly when you try to manipulate others. Like scheduling a tournament two weeks before mine and not reach out to discuss things. What that shows me........lack of respect not only for me but for all of those who play in it. Choices are good, competition is not. Everyone loses with that BS!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I have little knowledge of how all this IP address stuff works so i'll refrain from making a decision about my friend Troy. Hopefully the relationship between our new friend Hal and our community can become much more friendly as i appreciate that Hal is bringing Tecmo to places that don't currently have a circuit. I also hope the relationship between our old friend Mort and Dave can be patched up at least to the point where Mort will be attending Madison.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This is beyond ridiculous. As far as I know I’m the only person to have put on tournaments with the help of both Troy and Dave. Both are known names within the community and for different reasons. I have typed and deleted a post here 10 times wanting to voice my concerns but instead I’d rather give my appreciation to Dave and the way he conducts his business. I’ll let the rest fill in the blanks but know this I was going to shut my tournament down due to he actions of one person looking to become something bigger than everyone else.

When I created my Tecmo Milwaukee tournament I had the help of Rico and that was it. He was connected and we didn’t know how big we could get it. I reached out to Josh and Chet for help. They didn’t want to get involved but they gave me the players list so away I went. I quickly had a great deal of interest, but Rico and I didn’t have enough equipment. In came Troy. Troy wanted to play but had to justify it with his wife. He told me that he has all this equipment and TVs he could provide but for a price. So already from my first conversation I knew where his heart was. Still we needed the equipment due to getting a late start on it. His price? Meals, hotel, entry fee, federal mileage. Came out to $220. I kept it quiet from everyone and paid it out of my own pocket and not taking it out of tourney pool.

Troy did a great job and his equipment was top notch. You can tell a lot about a person in just the appreciation or giving of small gestures. Troy said he had a bad back and didn’t want to load up his vehicle. After the completion of our tourney I cleaned and loaded up his stuff. Perhaps he could have bought me a beer? Nope. He charges for his services....should I have charged for mine? He never stayed in a hotel but took that money. I walked out down $450 out of pocket, and was happy! It’s not about the money...it’s about the game.

THe boys eventually found out that I paid Troy and they weren’t happy with it. They said I shouldn’t have to eat that money, so we got out ahead on getting equipment for next tourney. We had all these systems and TVs that we were going to have to collect over town. I reached out to Troy asking if he was going to play....not use his equipment but play. He said no because we weren’t going to pay him to come down. Again has to justify it with wife. After a few contentious conversations Troy was about to have another kid and money was tight. We had guys who offered to carpool and I said I could help him out on fee. Had to be equipment or no deal for that he could sell to his wife.

In comes Dave Murray, who mind you I have had all but maybe 3 conversations with ever! He asked if I needed anything. Some of the prominent players who attended my tournament vouched for me and Dave reached out on his own. I told him my plan and dilemmas. The next day I received a package from package had all of his controllers and a credit card to get into the storage unit. He calls me and says take whatever you need. Systems, cords, TVs, and carts. Unbelievable. I ask how much you want?............his reply “Buy me a beer.”

Some of you may not know, but someone stole equipment from Dave at Madison. He didn’t have to reach out and help after what the community did but he did anyway.

I dont care about how good of a player you are or think you are. I don’t care how many tournaments you have won. I don’t care if you create a better website or have fancy advertising.......Respect is earned and it’s lost that quickly when you try to manipulate others. Like scheduling a tournament two weeks before mine and not reach out to discuss things. What that shows me........lack of respect not only for me but for all of those who play in it. Choices are good, competition is not. Everyone loses with that BS!

Have you set a date for the event this year? I hear that Deleted Account is willing to bring his equipment free of charge.